


watercolours

by waveydnp



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009 Phan, Depression, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 16:52:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17429786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: Dan’s colours are muted today. They’re dulled by something Phil doesn’t understand, but to Phil they’re no less worthy of marvel. He’d marvel over Dan’s colors if they were nothing more than a million shades of grey.





	watercolours

**Author's Note:**

  * For [templeofshame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/templeofshame/gifts).



Phil falls asleep with Dan’s voice sleepy in his ear, almost as if he’s right there and not a three hour train ride away.

He wakes up to his mum opening his curtains and telling him he’s a horrible lazy boy who needs to wake up before it isn’t morning anymore.

He tells her he’s an adult, he’s allowed to sleep the day away if he wants to. She tells him adults cook their own meals and wash their own stinky socks so he has a choice to make. He grumbles and groans and pulls his duvet up over his head but promises he only needs another five minutes. 

As soon as she’s gone he reaches under his pillow for his phone. There’s a message from Charlie and a few from his mum, but none from the person he really wants to hear from.

Which is fine. And not unsurprising. He wouldn’t be awake yet either if not for that squawking harpie downstairs that calls itself mother.

(Just joking! He’s only joking. Kath, seriously, he’s joking.)

He types out an enthusiastic good morning message and hits send before dragging his sorry ass out of bed. How he got through four years of university without failing a single course he’ll never truly understand. Waking up feels like a punishment, his only crime staying up late enough that the hours he’s racking up on Skype are probably nearing the realm of triple digits now. 

Between phone calls, texts, twitter DMs and Skype he probably spends more time talking to Dan than he doesn’t, and the time not spent talking to him is mostly spent _thinking_ about him.

So it doesn’t go unnoticed when hours and hours pass and Dan still hasn’t responded. Phil has showered and eaten and reluctantly accompanied his mum to the shops and back and still - nothing. The last message in his texts is one from Charlie asking if Phil is free tonight.

He wants the answer to be no, as much as he knows Charlie will hate it. He wants the answer to be no because he wants to spend tonight as he’s spent the last three, leaned back against his headboard with his laptop heating his thighs, sleep-bleary eyes leaking tears and laughing until his stomach hurts at some dumb joke Dan’s made. He wants to talk to Dan until the wee hours, sharing secrets and pretending he’s not staring at how broad Dan’s shoulders look or how nicely his hair frames his face. 

He’d started to assume it was a safe bet that that was what Dan wanted too. But now it’s half four and not even so much as a hello.

Phil’s managed not to be too clingy, not to give himself away. Suddenly he wonders if he should have been saving more of his cards. He’s already shown Dan nearly his whole deck and they’ve only been friends a few months.

Friends? The word feels wrong even in his own head.

But that’s what they are, right? Friends.

Suddenly he’s wondering if even that was too much to ask. Maybe he’d done that thing again, that thing he always seems to do in the beginning, throwing himself into things without thinking, painting himself onto whomever was willing to give him even a tiny canvas of attention. 

His phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out with surprising speed for how jittery his hands are and feels his stomach sink viscerally to see Charlie’s name yet again. All it does is remind him that Charlie was no exception.

But they’re still friends, even if ultimately there was someone else who could give Charlie what he really needed. They’re still friends, even after Phil brushed all his overly eager watercolours onto a pretty brown eyed face that wasn’t ready for quite so many colours. Or maybe Charlie just wanted prettier ones. 

Phil doesn’t want to think about Stephen’s watercolours. Stephen is his friend too. It’s fine. It’s all fine.

Phil has a different face to pine for now anyway, a different set of brown eyes and these ones are even prettier. Not that that’s what any of this is about, but… yeah. Dan is pretty and Phil was starting to think maybe he liked Phil’s colours, that maybe his canvas was as blank and eager as Phil’s.

 _sorry, busy tonight!! :[_ is what he texts to Charlie, because whether Dan has spoken to him by then or not, Phil reckons he won’t be in the mood for Charlie’s particular brand of friendship tonight. 

He decides to show one more card. He taps Dan’s name on his screen and texts simply: _you ok?_

Dan doesn’t answer.

Until he does, inconveniently when Phil is sat at the table eating dinner with his parents and his brother. He reads the message and forgets to hide what he’s doing from his mum, shocked to see Dan’s name after nearly a full day of radio silence. 

“Philip! No mobiles at the dinner table.”

Martyn kicks his foot under the table and grins. “Yeah Philip.”

It pains Phil to do it but he shoves his phone back into his pocket without responding to Dan’s unsettlingly sparse text. To tell his family that this is important would be to reveal something he’s definitely not ready for and he has too many anxieties battling in his brain already. He smiles a sheepish smile at being caught and hopes it doesn’t come across as wooden as it feels.

Dinner lasts approximately three centuries and Phil is quick to claim he’s got things to do when his mum tries to suggest watching a film as a family. She purses her lips in displeasure but lets him go without a fight. 

He doesn’t really have things to do. He could edit the video he filmed the other day but it’s not like he’s on a schedule. He hasn’t been on any type of schedule since he packed his things and left York to come back here, the house he grew up in, the house that feels like home. 

It still does feel like that, mostly. It feels like home but somehow still a place he probably shouldn’t be. He has a degree now, four years of experience under his belt with living out on his own. Sort of.

His whole life feels like one giant liminal space. He’s stuck between who he was and who he should be and he reckons it’s high time he figure out how to move forward into a space where he knows what he’s doing.

Last night he’d felt like maybe he was getting closer, like one piece of the puzzle might be presenting itself. Today everything feels all grey and fuzzy again. 

He lies back on his bed and takes out his phone, stomach fluttering in a bad way because he’s already decided he needs to be frank in his insecurity. Anything else will have his nerves eating themselves alive. 

Dan’s last message reads: _i dunno. sorry_

Phil types one out that says: _did i do something?_ He hits send and somehow feels even more shaky and nervous than before.

Instead of the buzz he’s expecting - or at least hoping for - his phone starts to ring. He answers it without even time to say hello before Dan’s voice is in his ear. 

“Why would you think that?”

“Uh, hi. I dunno. It just… I dunno. Sorry.” He’s babbling, instantly thrown off by the tone of Dan’s voice. “So you’re fine?” he adds quickly, knowing already that the answer is no. 

Dan laughs and the sound is a short, sharp punch of air. It sounds bitter. Phil hates it.

“Wouldn’t say that. But it’s— you didn’t do anything. Obviously.”

“Do you wanna talk? You can vent to me if you want. Sometimes talking about a bad day can—”

“I didn’t have a bad day,” Dan interrupts. 

“Oh.” What does he say now?

“More like a bad life.”

Phil is silent. His brain and his mouth and whatever tube or muscle or electrical pathway that connects them are all betraying him right now because he has absolutely no idea what to say. 

“Anyway,” Dan says after an eternity of agonizingly long, quiet seconds. “I won’t make you speak to me tonight. I just didn’t want you to think you did anything.”

“You’re hanging up?” Phil can’t quite keep the earnestness from clinging to the edge of his words. He’s letting a few more of his cards show once again, letting Dan see how desperate he is. 

But maybe this is what Dan wants. To make a clean break from Phil and his Phil-ness. Maybe Dan is just another person who finds Phil a little more on the bad side of weird. 

“Uh… yeah?” Dan’s voice sounds so flat, so devoid of the usual spirit Phil has come to crave. “You don’t wanna deal with me right n—”

“D’you wanna listen to Muse with me?” Phil blurts. He doesn’t want a break. Dan’s going to have to try harder than that. 

“What?”

“We don’t have to talk,” Phil says. “If that’s not what you want tonight. We could listen to Muse. Or something else, something you like. Or we could watch a film or something.”

The other end of the line is quiet save for the soft sound of Dan breathing. 

Phil cracks. He’s used up his quota of vulnerability for the day, apparently. “Or I could shut up and leave you alone. Sorry.”

“No.”

Phil’s palm is sweaty. He reaches down and rubs it against his jeans. “No? No to doing something together, or—”

“Don’t leave me alone. I don’t want that.”

Phil’s heart jumps. “Ok. I won’t then.”

“I’m gonna be really boring, probably. Reckon you’d be better off finding something else to do tonight.”

Phil resists the urge to ask again what’s wrong. Whatever it is Dan clearly doesn’t want to talk about it right now. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to talk about it with Phil. 

That twists at something jealous and possessive in his gut, but he tries to see reason. Dan doesn’t want Phil to hang up. He doesn’t want a clean break - and maybe not any kind of break at all. 

So he ignores what Dan said about finding something else to do and asks, “What d’you wanna do?”

“I dunno,” Dan says dully. “Can you choose? I just feel like shit. My brain doesn’t work.”

“Ok,” Phil says softly. “Let me think.”

He thinks. He thinks about Dan in his bedroom, sat on his brown bed in the brown room Phil’s seen bits and pieces of over the course of their many Skype calls. He thinks about Dan all alone and feeling bad in his head or his heart or maybe both and he tries to think of what he can do right now to take some of that badness away.

He thinks of what he likes to do when his own head is filled with thoughts that make him feel flat and dull and small and sad like Dan seems to feel now.

“We could watch YouTube?”

“Ok.” He doesn’t exactly sound excited but he also hadn’t hesitated to agree.

“Ok. What’s your favourite thing to watch when you feel rubbish?” Phil asks, reaching under his bed for his laptop.

“Um… you.”

Phil’s heart punches him right in the chest. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Dan admits easily. “We don’t have to watch you though. Reckon that’d be a bit… awkward?”

Phil laughs. “More than a bit.” He sits up against his headboard and opens his macbook on his lap. “I have a good idea I think. D’you have your computer with you?”

“Always.”

Phil opens YouTube and finds what he’s looking for. “Gonna email you a link, yeah?”

“K,” Dan murmurs.

He copies and pastes it into an email and sends it off and only a few minutes later Dan’s voice actually sounds a little warm when he says, “Oh. You were right. Good idea.”

Phil beams, happy for once that they’re not Skyping and Dan can’t see just how ridiculously easy it is for him to have such an effect. 

They watch video after video after video of screaming fans and flashing lights and loud guitar. Phil actually finds himself singing along a time or two with Matt Bellamy’s vocals and being unbothered about whether or not Dan has heard.

Dan is mostly quiet, which isn’t the Dan Phil has come to know, but it doesn’t feel so bad anymore. Every once in a while he’ll say something that makes it clear he’s still there and he’s still watching. Like: “I’d kill to go see them some day.” 

“Me too,” Phil agrees.

“Maybe we’ll go together someday,” Dan says quietly. He mostly sounds casual but Phil’s not quite convinced. 

“I’d like that,” he says, sure there’s the same hint of eagerness in his own voice.

A few more minutes of quiet watching pass. A new video starts and Dan says, “Hey Phil?”

“Yeah?”

“Is it… is it weird if I say, like… I kinda wish you were here right now?” 

Phil’s quite sure he’s never felt anything like the pure, honey-sweet affection that surges through him then. “Uh. No. Not weird.”

“Ok good. ‘Cause I do.”

“I do too,” Phil murmurs. “But just so you know… I’m ok with weird. I like a little weird.”

Dan laughs softly. “Mate. Why do you think you’re my favourite?”

“Oi,” Phil says fondly. “You calling me weird, Howell?”

“Trust me, it’s a compliment.”

“Well… thanks.”

“Mhm,” Dan hums, soft and low and Phil swears he can almost feel Dan’s breath in his ear. They go back to watching their favorite band on the screens of their computers and sharing the quiet space in the air waves between their phones.

Phil’s not sure how much time passes before Dan is saying, “I think I need to sleep now. My eyes don’t wanna stay open anymore.”

Phil’s eyes flick up to the top right corner of his macbook to check the time. “Oh wow, yeah. It’s late.”

“Yeah,” Dan says. It sounds like he might be stretching at the same time. “Plus I didn’t really sleep last night.”

“Sleep,” Phil tells him. “I’ll… speak to you tomorrow?” He’s hesitant. He’s leaving it in Dan’s hands completely. Dan’s canvas is not Phil’s to paint on, not if that’s not what Dan wants.

“Mhm, ‘course. I’ll text you.” His words are slurred together with fatigue. And then, a little quieter, “Thank you, Phil.”

“For what?” Phil drops his computer gently to the bright green carpeted floor and shimmies down onto his back under the covers.

Dan yawns around the same time, so Phil’s not sure he hears the question. He sounds like he might already be half asleep. 

“What?” Dan mumbles.

“Nothing,” Phil says softly. “You should sleep now.”

“Mm, yeah, sleep.”

Before he can stop himself, Phil says, “Meow. Goodnight Dan.”

The last thing Phil hears from Dan is a quiet, dreamy chuckle. He waits a few minutes until he’s sure Dan is asleep before he hangs up. 

Dan’s colours are muted today. They’re dulled by something Phil doesn’t understand, but to Phil they’re no less worthy of marvel. He’d marvel over Dan’s colors if they were nothing more than a million shades of grey. 

He closes his eyes and smiles a little to himself knowing he’s not alone in whatever this is. He’s not the only one holding a paintbrush.

He falls asleep humming Uprising, and with the sound of Dan’s sleepy laugh echoing in his ears.


End file.
